All it took was a gorgeous, sharp-tongued blonde to change forever the way people think about women fighting in a cage.

Ultimate Fighting Championship president Dana White vowed to “never” have females compete in his organization as recently as 2011. Ronda Rousey forced his hand and now she’s doing what some of her male counterparts failed to for years — helping UFC reach the mainstream.

“No fighter who has ever fought for the UFC has received as much attention as she has — it’s a fact,” White told reporters Thursday. “Honestly, going into this thing, I didn’t know that would happen.”

Rousey, 26, is the only reason why White decided to let women fight in the UFC. In December, he crowned the Los Angeles native — despite never having entered the UFC octagon — as the first female champion in organization history, and Saturday night she will trade punches with Marine veteran Liz Carmouche in the main event of UFC 157.

It’s the lone women’s fight on the card, but it will get top billing over 11 men’s bouts. The event, from Anaheim’s Honda Center, starts at 10 p.m. (EST) and is available on pay-per-view for $54.95. The UFC expects it to be a box-office smash — the gate already has surpassed $1.1 million, the amount registered by the UFC men’s heavyweight championship fight in 2011 at the same building.

Rousey is the reason why. She has sex appeal and a brash attitude to match. When asked by The Post if this irregular whirlwind of attention in a short period of time has caught her by surprise, Rousey said, “Define regular.”

This isn’t the first time Rousey has made history. She became the first American woman to win an Olympic medal in judo when she took bronze at the Beijing Games in 2008. Last year, just over 11 months into her professional career, Rousey won the Strikeforce women’s bantamweight title by submitting Miesha Tate with her trademark armbar.

That’s when the attention started. Rousey graced the cover of ESPN’s “The Body Issue” completely naked with just her gloved hands covering her breasts. She appeared on numerous late-night talk shows. Viral videos caught her ripping Kim Kardashian and Michael Phelps in hilarious fashion. A star was born.

This is not an Anna Kournikova story, though. Rousey is the best women’s fighter in the world, with an undefeated 6-0 record as a pro and every single win coming by armbar submission in the first round.

Only Tate lasted more than a minute in the cage with her. Rousey is more than a 12-to-1 favorite over the 29-year-old Carmouche, the first openly gay UFC fighter.

“Yes, [Rousey] is pretty,” White told Sports Illustrated last month. “She is also mean, she is nasty, and she likes to finish people.”

Rousey’s made-for-TV back story takes things to another level. She was born with the umbilical cord tied around her neck and wasn’t able to speak properly until she was 4 years old. At 8, her father committed suicide after a sledding accident left him paralyzed. Her mother, AnnMaria Rousey DeMars, was a judo world champ before women’s judo was an Olympic sport.

Rousey is a contradiction — a girl with fashion-plate looks who tries to rip arms off for a living. It took someone like that to break the gender barrier in the testosterone-driven UFC after almost 20 years.